


Day of Fate

by ThisShipHasSails



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (eventual) Thasmin, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 17:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18428414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisShipHasSails/pseuds/ThisShipHasSails
Summary: “Hold on, Doc, you’ve never been to see the fall of the wall?”





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Maglex’s “Curse of the Pharaohs” and SilverHeart09’s “The Temple of Athena”, both of which are fantastic, here is my attempt at historical fanfic, set on November 9, 1989, which is the day the Berlin wall fell. All of the historical events mentioned in this story are true. They all happened on the 9th of November in Germany. That includes the really good (fall of the Berlin wall, 1989) and the really bad (Reichskristallnacht/Night of Broken Glass, 1938). The story proper takes place in 1989, but it also touches upon the events of 1938. So archive warnings and potential trigger warnings apply. Please be mindful of these when reading/deciding not to read. It gets lighter in the following chapters (at least that’s the plan). Writing this, I did my best to be respectful to the people involved, particularly the Eastern German people and the Jewish people. I am of the former, though not of the latter. If you want to comment, please be respectful, too. 
> 
> Having said that, I would absolutely love to know what y’all think of this! I still feel like I cannot plot to save my life, so this is my attempt to trick myself into trying. Anyway. Onwards with the story.

“Where to next, fam? The green moon of Sparta? Or back in time to say hello to Cesar?”

They’ve just come back to the TARDIS after their latest adventure, in which the played a significant role in bringing together two rivalling tribes of ninja turtles. (“Not the teenage kind”, as the Doctor had clarified. “Though still very much mutant.”)

It’s Graham who speaks first, because all that talk about reunion has given him an idea.

“Doc, how about the fall of the Berlin wall? Could do with something joyful.”

“Oh, brilliant. 10 points to Graham! Make that 20, because I’ve never been and always wanted to go.” 

Her eyes light up and her smile is radiant, as she immediately starts dashing around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers. In response, the three humans feel the tell-tale shift under their feet of a time- and space machine changing course mid-flight through the vortex. They’ve gotten used to it by now, and the thought of having gotten used to something so fantastically alien makes Yaz smile.

“Hold on, Doc, you’ve never been to see the fall of the wall?” Graham’s voice is incredulous in that grandfatherly way he usually reserves for Ryan, and although the Doctor is a good two thousand years older than him, she rises to the bait of family dynamics and defends herself with a pout.

“Things to do, places to see, times to be. You know how it is!”

“Yeah”, Graham smiles and catches Ryan’s eye across the console, who just smirks at it all. “Starting to.”

“Also, it’s a bit tricky.”

“Why?” The sound of Yaz’s voice makes her look up. 

“November 9th, Yaz! Lots of things happen in Germany on November 9th, particularly in the twentieth century.” 

The three humans shift slightly. By now, they know when they are in for a history lesson, and they make themselves comfortable. Ryan sits down cross-legged on the floor, Graham leans against the nearest pillar, and Yaz hoists herself up on the TARDIS console and lets her legs dangle freely.

As they knew she would, the Doctor continues.

“In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II was dethroned by his chancellor, which effectively ended the rule of Emperors in Germany. On that very same day, the new German Republic was announced not once, but twice, and by two different people of opposing political parties. Four years later, also on the 9th of November, Albert was awarded his Nobel Prize in Physics. We also got spectacularly drunk that night. I say we. He took it way worse than I did. Genius in physics, but really couldn’t hold his drink.”

“Hold on, Doc. Albert as in Einstein?”

“Of course! Who do you think told him to look into the law of the photoelectric effect?”

Graham’s mouth falls open, Ryan just rolls his eyes, and Yaz gives her an indulgent smile. The Doctor’s face is as smug as ever. 

“It gets darker after that. Only one year later, in 1923, Hitler makes his first grab for power on November 9th. He fails, and the whole event goes down in history as the failed Beer Hall Putsch.”

“The Germans really like their beer, don’t they”, Ryan quips, but his tone is subdued and the humour of his words never reaches his eyes.

The Doctor absentmindedly nods her head before she continues.

“When Hitler finally does gain power in 1933, it becomes a national holiday in memory of the Nazis who died in the beer hall putsch.” Her voice is low now, her expression darkened, as they all watch the shadows of history pass over her eyes. 

“It gets worse, though, doesn’t it, Doc.” At the sound of Graham’s voice, Yaz turns around in surprise to see the same shadows in his eyes.

“Something about a night of crystals? Wasn’t that November 9th as well?”

The Doctor nods. “The Night of Broken Glass, November 9th, 1938. Germany is now in the throes of the Nazi Regime. Years of vicious antisemitism explode that night. Synagogues burn. Jewish houses and shops are destroyed. And more than four hundred Jewish people are killed or driven to suicide. And starting on the morning of November 10, tens of thousands of Jewish people are arrested. Many of whom end up in the camps.”

The silence that falls between them is heavy, and Yaz swears that even the TARDIS is quieter than usual. She looks back up to the Doctor, who is standing a mere couple of metres away from her, close enough for her to see the film of tears in her eyes.

“Doctor?” Her voice is quiet, and for a moment Yaz is not sure the Doctor has heard her. But then, with the effort of pulling herself out of the maelstrom of history, she lifts her head and looks at her.

“I was there. I saw it happen. And I couldn't do anything about it”, she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Why not?” It feels cruel to Yaz to ask the question, but as another shadow crosses the Doctor’s face, she senses that not asking might have been even crueller. 

“Some events are too big to change or prevent. Thing is, it didn’t start with the Night of Broken Glass. Or with the camps. The holocaust was in many ways the inevitable result of countless smaller acts of cruelty, hatred, and ignorance. The worst of humanity, manifesting itself in the everyday and stretched out over a long enough period of time that it becomes difficult to pinpoint when and where exactly it started.”

“So what did you do?”, Yaz asks, even though she is not quite sure she can stand it to hear more.

“The only thing I could. I witnessed.” Again, there is silence, and the three humans watch their alien friend with a mixture of compassion and trepidation. 

It’s a look that the Doctor has always found difficult to bear and she is about to break the silence, but it is Ryan who speaks first, and it makes her think, not for the first time, that he is wise beyond his years.

“So this is what we’re gonna do, then? Bear witness to the fall of the wall? Only that this time round, it’ll be something good that’s happening?”

“Oh, Ryan, we are gonna do so much more than that”, she says and her face is alight with unshed tears of sorrow and joy. “Tonight, we’re gonna dance in the streets of Berlin with hundreds of thousands of people, who won’t care that it’s cold, who won’t care that it’s late, because all they do care about is that they are finally being reunited. They know that on this night, they are on the right side of history. They feel that on this November 9th, Germany finally gets it right. Just you wait and see.”

And with that, she pulls the lever and they are off.


	2. II

“Doc, can’t you get this ship of yours under control?” Graham yells, as he narrowly avoids being thrown to the floor for the third time in a row.

“Oi, I’m doing my best here! And so is she!”, the Doctor shouts over the noises the TARDIS makes as she steers her trusted ship through the time vortex and towards Berlin on November 9, 1989. She has to admit, though, that it’s a bit of a rocky ride, as she clings on to the console during a particularly violent jolt. 

“What’s gotten into her anyway? Surely Berlin in 1989 isn’t that far away?”, Ryan yells, desperately trying to hold on to the floor from which he still hasn’t gotten up. He knows better by now.

“It’s a critical day, November 9”, the Doctor shouts while trying to flip switches, pull levers, and hold on to the console at the same time. “Germany’s Day of Fate. Things pile up over time, which makes traveling to it a bit difficult. Mind, nothing the TARDIS can’t do.”

“But all the stuff you told us about doesn’t all happen in the same year, right? How can time pile up to make one day critical? Don’t the years go, like, linear?”, Ryan asks, finally able to lower his voice again as the ride smoothens.

“Because time doesn’t work like that, all linear. Nothing straight about time!”, the Doctor says, patting down her tousled hair and absent-mindedly reaching over to do the same to Yaz’s, who is still just about sitting next to her on the central console, and whose locks have become disentangled from her braid. Only when Yaz lets out a surprised gasp at the sudden, although not unwelcomed, touch, does the Doctor actually notice what she’s doing, shoots her an apologetic smile that has the effect of sending jolts through Yaz’s stomach, and continues her explanation, using her hands for emphasis as well as, for some strange reason, a small glass sphere.

“Think of it like this: you live your lives one day after another, as you take one step after another. But then you suddenly realise that time repeats itself”, she says, turning the glass sphere around on its axis. “Night follows day. But equally, day follows night follows day follows night and so on. One day follows the other, but after a year, it all starts over again. You get older, but the seasons repeat themselves. It’s linearity wrapped up in circularity, stretching out into infinity, both back to the past and forwards to the future. It’s miraculous. And beautiful, time.” 

The Doctor finishes with a far-away look in her eyes.

“That sounds very timey wimey, Doctor”, Yaz says to draw the Doctor out of her reverie.

“Timey-what?”, Ryan asks at the same moment as there is a yelp from the Doctor and the sound of shattering glass that has all three of her companions look at her in mild shock. The Doctor has dropped the glass sphere, which smashed on the floor and into a thousand piece, and she is now looking at Yaz with an intensity that makes the younger woman’s breath catch in her throat. But before either of them can say anything, the TARDIS lands with a jerk and a rumble and they have arrived.

The spell between the two women breaks and the Doctor shakes her head briefly as if to put her brain back in order, before rushing towards the doors.

“Gather round, fam”, the Doctor says excitedly, and her enthusiasm is so magnetic that all four of them sport identical grins as the Doctor throws open the TARDIS doors with a flourish.

“Berlin, November 9th, 1989. Welcome to one of the brightest nights in the twentieth century.”


End file.
